The Sting of Failure

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to talk about the acid drip of failure. It's like acid slowly dripping onto your skin, onto your face. Well, I don't know, it might not have to be that bad. And in fact, in today's episode, you might shift the way that you see failure. Not to say that it doesn't sting or it's not uncomfortable, but maybe your willingness to move towards it, to lean into it, to face it, to confront it, to maybe even embrace it. My goal will be that it changes for you just by spending this time here with me and reflecting on your own life and your own values. So before we dive into that, I will ask you now, at the risk of failing and getting rejected, that if you are a fan of this show and you haven't taken the three minutes to give it a review on itunes, please go do that now. If you're willing, you can pause this, go give it a review. If it's been benefiting you in your life, please share how and that helps me reach more people with this show, which is the point. This is part of Operation Mass Liberation, how we can help as many people as possible free themselves from social anxiety and self doubt and step into being the most badass, confident, badass version of themselves. That's right, double badass. So thank you in advance for doing that. If you've already done that, you're awesome. Thank you. And if you haven't done that, you're not awesome. No, you're probably still awesome. All right. I actually just watched the Lego Movie last night with my kids and I don't know if you've seen that. If you don't have kids, you probably won't watch that. But they have a song in there that says everything is awesome. So that's in my head. I love that. It's my jam. You know what's not awesome is failure. Alright, I'll tell you right now, failure sucks, it stings, it burns, and yet we gotta learn how to live with it. You gotta learn how to deal with it. Because if you are creating anything meaningful in your life, that means you are attempting to steer your life towards what you want to create something that you value, that excites you, that inspires you, that supports you. You're gonna be taking actions, and that means you're gonna be getting failures. And it's inevitable. And you know this like I'm not saying something radically new to you. This is pretty standard self development 101 stuff, right? And yet we can all know that intellectually. And yet the way we approach it emotionally and energetically and in our psychology and our levels of consciousness is anything other, you know, it's not that empowered often, even if we intellectually know that that's a useful or right way to be. So let's just break that down for a second. So you really get how inevitable this is, right? Because, okay, what is failure? Failure. Failure is when you don't have the outcome that you want in the time frame that you want. And an outcome is something that comes about as a result of actions that you take or don't take. An outcome is like a snapshot of something, some metric, something you're measuring at some point in time. So your weight is an outcome in your physical health. Maybe not the best outcome to measure because it tends to mess with people's heads, but it is a outcome that people use, you know, your sales for something or your position in your company, or maybe even, you know, how you are with your kids on a certain weekend day or a date experience you have. These are all snapshots, moments in your life that you can look at and say, hey, that's how I want it to be. Success. That's not how I want it to be. Failure. And so in this regard, anything that's not how you want it to be, you know, you might consider a failure. Now you might not consider it a failure. And isn't that very interesting? Because if you don't consider it a failure, maybe you have a very different response to it emotionally in your psychology, your mindset, your energy, everything. Let me give you an example, because you might say, well, hold on a second. No, something's clearly a failure or it's not a Z's. I mean, everybody knows that. Not really. It's in the eye of the beholder. So let's say, you know, let's take a very classic example that seems like it's gonna Be very cut and dry. Like dating, you know, you're single, you want to date, you put your profile out there, you get some feedback. People are interested in having a connection with you and texting with you on there, maybe meeting up with you. Success, right? Well, maybe. But what if you go on a string of dates and they're all very unpleasant for some reason? I don't know, the people are just off or something about it doesn't feel right for you. Let's say you just ended a relationship and you know, like, ah, I gotta get out, I gotta get out there again, I feel terrible. And then you get out there and have no one responds to you, right? Just crickets. And you might say, oh, this is terrible, this feels awful. And you might say, wow, I'm really glad that I'm not dating because maybe at first you're kind of fighting it and then you have a moment where you're like, wow, that's exactly what I need. I just need a little bit of time and space. Maybe I need to spend more time with my friends and on my own and start to invest some energy in something that makes me feel good about me. Just a little break. And it turns out that was the perfect thing. So what's the difference? Well, it's about the outcome and what you desire and how you perceive it. Is it helping me or hurting me? Is it good or bad? And what does this mean for my future? Because whether you want to be doing this or not, you, you know, you, me, all of us, we're constantly predicting the future and taking today's events and extending them into the future. Now there's some quality of this, this is useful. This is your executive functioning brain that my five going on six year old son doesn't have a whole lot of, right? So if me or my wife Candice try to use something like, well, if you do that today, then in four days you won't have blah, blah, blah, right? Or you use up all this thing and his mind is like four days, who cares, man? What about right now? I want to eat all the ice cream now, right? So there's some ability to see what you're doing now and how it affects the future is useful. However, not all those predictions are true. And so often failure and why it feels so bad is not because of what's happening in the moment, it's because of the future we imagine and project and predict. And here's a fascinating little nugget one layer deeper. It's going to blow your mind. The future that you predict from your failure that is discouraging, depressing, or scary. Existed before the current failure, Mind blown. Let me explain. So let's say you think, man, there's no way I could successfully start a business. It's impossible. There's no way. I don't have what it takes, or whatever. All those stories of impossibility existed long before you took your first steps to start the business. And let's say you push through those, you overcome your doubt, you get out there, you create your idea, you start putting together whatever you need to or assembling whoever you need to, and then you hit this obstacle or roadblock. Maybe something seems like you can't solve or some regulation that's getting in your way, or maybe you started to generate some income and then it dwindled down and it doesn't look like you're gonna be able to generate the income you wanted from that side business. And you say, ah, man, ah, failing. This feels so terrible. Why is it so terrible? Because you're telling yourself, you can't start a business, you're never gonna be successful, this is never gonna work. And now you're saying, you see, you see, you see, it's never gonna work. Look, look what's happening right now. And it's so valuable to see this whole rodeo, this whole show, this whole drama, because it exists before, during, and after. It's like the DAO exists before time, during time, and after time, only this is a little personalized version for you. It's just. It's there all the whole time. And what is that voice? It's the voice of your safety police that's telling you it's trying to keep downsizing your life and keeping it as small as possible and scrunching it down into a little trash bag and one of those little tiny trash cans that goes into a bathroom. That's what your safety police is trying to keep your life inside of. And so it's going to try to use the stories ahead of time. And then any hint or whiff of failure, it pounces on it. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, see, see, see, see, it's over. It's over. Quit now. Never gonna work. Just quit. And so then we take failure as this horrible, discouraging thing. And that's why failure feels so damn terrible. And it could go on and on and on and on for years. So the safety police in me has different stories. And these reflect, you know, why does it go on for years? Because they reflect your identity. And if they Keep going. It means your identity hasn't upgraded yet. So let me give two examples from my own life that I've noticed. One is we've talked about physical health a number of times in this show and then also in business and finance. So in physical health, there's this old identity of I'm weak, broken, fragile. If I use my body, it can't sustain it, and I'm destined for pain and injury and ruin and a limited small life. Very uplifting, right? And then I have a new story, a new identity that says I'm a warrior athlete. Specifically on the athlete part, right? Yes. And the more I use my body, the stronger I get. And I could do extraordinary feats if I'm willing and determined and disciplined and take care of my body and my health. Let's go. Whatever it takes. And that identity has led me to be able to do some pretty extraordinary things with my body that I'm extremely grateful for. And just like you'll have in your own life, it's like a war of the mind. War for the mind, right? That's the territory that these different parts of you, but they're almost like different energies or entities. Now, I don't want to go super mystical or woo woo or weird, but you know, isn't that fascinating? Isn't that fascinating that it's like different. You can call them parts of your psyche, but even that is like, what the hell does that mean? Are they like. You can't map these in an fmri, really, they might say, well, some extra blood flow in the cingulate nucleus, but it's like no one can really understand or map, at least at this point in the psychology of the consciousness, you know, what these parts are and where they reside and how they really work. But it's pretty fascinating, right? It's like different. You part in there that take over and drive the ship, drive you and control your perception, your actions, your reactions, your relationships, your behaviors, how you perceive the world, how you show up, what actions you commit to, what commitments you drop off from, what decisions you make for better or worse, what life circumstances you create and invite in and, and make happen and manifest. All of that is coming from these different parts of you, whatever that means, that have radically different psychologies and levels of consciousness and levels of maturity. I think that's fascinating. And so when there's this battle between the different parts, you will see when one part's driving and another part's driving. And so what will happen is my warrior athlete will drive and I'm Like, I'm going to do something great. Let's go. Let's commit to something exciting. And then I'll be training for it or building up my strength or whatever. And then there's that other part that's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's slow this bus down. And so that part's waiting. Anytime there's any sense of pain in my body, it will wanna jump out and be like, injury, injury ruined. You can't do it. You can't do it. You're gonna die. Your feet hurt, you're dead, it's over. Your hip hurts, it's over, it's done. Right? And so what is that? Doing that part is taking, you know, a quote of failure. In this case, failure might just be body pain. And saying that means you'll never be able to do this. But do you see how then you'll never be able to do this. Existed before the failure, right? I was talking about this with a client recently. They, in dating have a negative experience. Someone doesn't want to date them, or they have a bad date or they get rejected and they feel awful, awful, horrible. It's like, okay, in their mind, it's like, yeah, rejection is horrible. I was like, yeah, okay. Yes, yes. And it's not set in stone how horrible it is and how deep that horrible is and how long that horrible lasts. And it can be uncomfortable. Sure. Like a cold shower. A cold shower is uncomfortable, not horrible. Might even be invigorating. Might even be empowering. Might even energize you. What if failure could energize you? And this client looked at me like I was crazy. Or rejection. I said, rejection could energize you. I said, well, let's find out what happens when you get rejected. And we started to unpack it, and sure enough, when he gets rejected, it's. I'm an awkward, unlovable person. No one's ever going to want to be with me. No one ever has. Here I am, I'm 41 years old and I've never really had a, you know, the kind of relationship I should have. I'm very. I don't have enough experience. I'm clearly, you know, basically unlovable is the. Is the essence of his story. And he feels awful. And I'm like, yeah, but that existed before. This person didn't respond to you. Right? So that safety police is looking for that to hook into. And for me, another place I notice this is in business because my safety police for years, ever since I started my own businesses, Therapy, business, now coaching, business and anything, anything related to business or finance. My safety police freaking hates risks and actions in all those areas. It wants me to probably have like as stable of a job as possible. No risk, no putting myself out there, just head under the radar would probably love me. Just like working in a cubicle on a computer, coding and never speaking up, which was the life that I was on before I discovered and shifted. By the way. I was studying computer science in UC Santa Barbara. Go gauchos. Actually, I don't care. I don't really follow any college sports. But you're supposed to say that for the school you went to. I don't know. In any case, my safety police hates all risk in this area. And so anytime I've taken any risk over the last 20 years in career in business, I'd say especially, you know, with vigor in the last 10, it predicts doom, failure, death, ruin, and then any indication that something might not work out. And look, in business, does everything work out? Does everything go the way that you want it to? Every marketing campaign, every sale, every. Every engagement, every whatever service or product you sell, everything go. Everything with suppliers, everything, all money is always up, you know? Is that how it works? It's like, absolutely not, right? It's like, it's the, it's the playing field of life. It's like a contact sport. You get knocked down sometimes. You have triumph, victory moments, you have defeats. You know, it's like hard knocks. And that's how it is. There's just no one, just coasts, as far as I know. And yet anytime there's a hard knock or a loss or a failure, this part will jump out of the woodwork and be like, that's it. This is the beginning of the end. It's kind of what I told you. I mean, I was telling you doomed. I mean, I predicted doomed. Now, 10 years later. But whatever. My predictions always come true. You're going to die, right? I mean, that one's probably true, but not from failure, not from taking a risk. Not, you know, penniless and ill and diseased in the street, dying in a gutter or whatever that part predicts for you. For all of us. No. I mean, yeah. At the end of your life, there will come a time where, you know, you, me and all of us will take our final breath. And up until then, though, how do you want to live? So are you seeing here how the pain of failure doesn't stem from the experience, it stems from your stories about it. And those stories predate any Failure. So where does that leave you? Well, you may want to get curious about those stories that make up your old identity. I'm the kind of person who, what, never can make it, who no one ever wants to be with, who never quite gets it, who is lazy, who's a couch potato, who's. Whatever. Old junky identities. Because that's where your stories, your stories come out of that old identity. Like, it's like a fountain. It's like a spring, a spring of sludge. Sludge, spring. Those exist anyway, in this case, they do, Right. So we want to become really curious about that. So when failure comes, and here's how the process is probably going to go down, whether it's a failure or rejection, which is just a certain kind of failure, you're going to start to notice the failure. Like, you're going to get wind of it, right? Like, the person didn't respond to me, or what are our sales numbers? Or what did so and so say about my presentation? What are they going to. You know, I'm going to get reprimanded in that meeting. Oh, God. Right? Something's happening. You either find out ahead of time or as it's happening, and there's gonna be that internal sound effect for you that they use in movie previews, usually, like action movies, like Marvel movies and stuff. It's like, You know, like that, and you're gonna have that, and then time's gonna slow down and you're gonna be like, oh, failure terrible. And it's gonna burn. And it feels like you're like strapped to a chair and someone's dripping acid on your forehead. You're like, bah, I can't get out. And it'll burn. It stings. I don't know. It burns your chest. It burns your ego. You feel embarrassed, you feel shame, you feel discouraged, right? That's probably depending on the size of the failure. I don't know. And then, though. And then what? I mean, you can just kind of endure it. Say, yeah, failure is part of life. Makes me stronger. Like, okay, there's kind of a mental toughness aspect to that tough guy. But isn't there also maybe a more clever, wise, magical way to navigate around this stuff and see, wait, it's all mind. It's all creation of how I perceive it. So how can I hold this differently? And what if this failure is a gift? Because. And you can decide what because. But I would say one is. At the very least, it is showing you a story from an old identity that doesn't serve you that you can now become more conscious of and consciously change. Because the pain is not coming from the failure. It's coming from that story. And you want to find that story. It's like, it's like a weed. This weekend we have a little section of our yard, bark chips, that was just totally overtaken by this little weed. And that weed is very easy to pull out early on. And we didn't do that because I just, I don't. I hate yard work. I don't know why. I'm just like, I'm the worst with it. Weeding. Some people love it. I'll just get out my garden and it feels so good. And I'm like, zoot me. I'd rather do whatever. I don't know, some sort of hard physical effort or cleaning the kitchen. I'd even clean bathrooms. I would. Over outdoor. I don't know why. Anyway, you're outside, it's supposed to be great. Any case, so we're out there and I'm out there with my 5 year old son and he's like, I'll weed with you, daddy. So we get out there, I weed for like 15 minutes and I'm like, enough of this. So I go into the house, I'm like, I'm done. I tap out. And Candace is like, all right, I'll go check it out. So she goes out there and she just beast modes it. She like gets a shovel and digs these things out. That, by the way, side note, you want to be manly, avoid all physical labor. Let your wife do it. I carry heavy things around, you know, I do other manly things. Anyway, so she pulls all these weeds out. Now these weeds have these huge white roots that go real deep. We let them grow too long, right? So they get when they real deep into the ground. And she had to really hoof and yank to get him out. That is what failure offers to you. The failure is like the little green plant on the top of the ground. It's showing you something, it's saying, hey, there's something here. Now if you're willing and you receive the message and take the opportunity, you can grab that sucker and really start to pull. Maybe you got to get a shovel or move it back and forth for a little while, bit of work on it. But then you can yank that sucker out and you can pull out some deep, gnarly old story that started when you were like 3 years old and change it. I mean, you don't have to know where it came from. You don't have to Identify three years old. You can just be like, wow, this is what I'm telling myself. And that's probably the most effective way to change it, is to put words to it. Is to put words to it and then consciously start to choose something else. In fact, we're gonna have to talk about that in the next episode, because that's a whole episode in itself. But now you know that failure is the opportunity, is the gift to identify a story that doesn't serve you. And in the next lesson, next episode, I guess, is what these are called. Then we'll. We'll talk about how to shift that story. Sound good? All right. Fantastic work. Let's talk about your action step for today. Time for action, action, action. Your action step today is to reflect on a recent failure, rejection, setback thing that was not the way that you wanted in the time frame that you wanted. And then examine it. Don't just take for granted that of course it has to feel bad and you have to feel worthless and all these other things that come with it. What if it's a completely neutral stimulus and you can say, hmm, okay, well, what happens? Just get really curious, like a detective. Well, then what happened then? I don't know. I just feel bad. Okay. What kind of bad? I don't know. Bad. You know, you got to be a little curious, a little willing. Breathe in and slow down. You know that squeezing in your chest. I think the body sensations are a great place to start. Slow down and feel them. Feels like burning, ripping, twisting. And just be with that for a few breaths and then get really curious. What's the story? What's the imagined future? What's the meaning? And you'll start to dig around and find those roots. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthyguy.com for free vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidence center dot com.